


Apprenticeship

by pherede



Series: Livewrites [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherede/pseuds/pherede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eöl strikes a deal with the Eldest of Dwarves. A snippet written for a livewrite prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apprenticeship

Perhaps his more prideful kin, the sublime and decadent rulers of Doriath, would have demanded rather than offered exchange, would have kept their feet where Eol now knelt. But none of them could have gained what now Durin offered, Durin the firstborn of the Dwarves, Durin who learned smithing at the hand of Aule himself. None of them would ever be apprenticed, or learn the beautiful dark trades of the people of Arda’s deepest places, or be allowed into the secret roots of the city where the culture that elves now adapted-- trade, jeweling, doughty weaponry-- was born and husbanded in the dark.  
  
“It would be a true apprenticeship, in the customs of the Dwarves,” said Durin at last, having thought in silence for long minutes. “Many things are expected of our apprentices, living breast-to-breast with their masters. You would be a body servant, a student, a housemaid; you would give your work to your master until your journey-piece is completed; you would stay in our city and see nothing of the light until we are certain of your worth.”  
  
“Anything,” breathed Eol, as if giving up the searing sun would be a burden, as if he shied from hard labor, and he was inducted that hour into the servitude and apprenticeship of Durin the Deathless.  
  
They were not harsh, the Dwarves, though neither were they subtle; and Eol learned very quickly the preferences of his new master, the ways to set the forge, the tools he favored. Quickly too he learned, though he had never thought it possible, the ways in which his master liked to be touched: the caress of long hands in his hair as his mouth went to work, the heat of rough dwarf-skin against his back in the night, the ever-astonishing way in which his body yielded to the strange depravities of this compact king-blacksmith. In the night, he was plundered, ravished, a willing participant in acts no elf in Melian’s city would have guessed possible; in the mornings he swept, cleaned, cast pig iron; and in the afternoons and evenings he learned the secrets he now paid for with his body, and tried not to long for the rest and the hunger and the fulfillment of night, with its secrets of sweeter and darker hue.


End file.
